Why I added a blog to Beka Xo Co.

We all want to feel like our voices matter. There is something innate in humans that makes us want to tell our stories and makes us want to be heard. Since the beginning of time, stories were told and retold and passed down through generations. That was how loved ones were remembered before photos and memorial Facebook pages. Such stories were being told even before written language. Cavemen (sorry if that’s not the politically correct term anymore! I don’t mean to offend you Cavepeople!) were drawing on cave walls to make sure their stories were left behind to be made known to others. It’s just human nature.

Think of how GREAT it feels to unload on your spouse after a long day. Or how stress relieving it is to get together for a girls-gab-session with your bestie! Ok, some of that stress relief might be from the wine, but still! In addition to providing you with a new perspective and someone else’s opinion or sympathies on your stressor, talking things out has been scientifically proven to have beneficial effects on our brains. That is why therapy works! Even telling our stories to a complete stranger who has no emotional involvement in our lives can help us to unwind, decompress, and stress less. In fact, while looking into this idea, I stumbled upon a Case Studyfrom Michigan State University and the University of Michigan in which psychologists were studying the effect of simply talking to oneself to relieve stress. While these psychologists are conducting more in-depth studies on this matter, the initial findings showed that simply speaking about traumatic events out-loud and in the third person displayed less brain activity in the parts of the brain associated with strong emotional experiences. Meaning, those being studied exhibited less stress when speaking out loud.

While I’m not here to share traumatic life events or negativity, I do tend to get mind-numbingly obsessed with anything I’m in to – projects, books, TV series, new mom ideas – and I feel the need to share it with everyone to keep from being consumed by it! Yes, I’m that girl that tends to over research, over prepare, over think, and over share.

Sometimes, in our busy lives, it is hard to find time to sit down and just talk with others to the extent that we would like. We spend more time wrapped in Netflix bliss than speaking. Or when we do talk, we find ourselves going over grocery lists, making plans with the baby sitter, or sharing something we heard through the grapevine rather than sharing what is really on our hearts. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I don’t want to waste conversation time with my husband going on about stress at work, and while he is amazing at supporting all my hobbies and interests, he doesn’t really care about my newest sewing project or share my excitement over a new crafting technique that I have just learned. Oh, and he CERTAINLY doesn’t want to hear about yet another mom-blog I just stumbled upon! But to be fair, I don’t much care about the upgrade he’s making to his gun stock or his most recent civil war documentary discovery, although I am better at fake listening than he is. We don’t share much in the way of personal interests, but that’s ok. We share a beautiful friendship and all the love two people can muster.

So there you have it. For the sake of my sanity, and my husband’s, I started a blog for Beka XO Company. I want to be heard by anyone who will listen. I want to share the exciting and the mundane; the things I have done and things I have learned. Hopefully the things that I have a need to say, others have a need to hear. To start, I wrote this essay on my [work] computer (don’t tell anyone!) and it wasn’t posted anywhere. No one read it. I wasn’t even sure I would post it, but it felt therapeutic. It was a relief and my poor husband didn’t have to sit through hours of me blabbing on about being heard. I was heard by my biggest fan – myself.